Over-design is one of the curses of the modern restaurant world, so it was a joy to enter Patrick Molloy’s new solo venture, by Guildhall. It’s almost a parody of plainness. Not perhaps quite to the extent of the epic Victorian stalwart Sweetings – where Molloy was formerly maitre d’ – but more in a 1950s, materials-are-in-short-supply-you-know sort of way. There are two floors, but the design is equally understated throughout (though, upstairs, you do get tablecloths).
Given the straightforward style of the place, you image you could sit down and say ‘dressed crab, Dover sole and a bottle of Chablis’, without looking at the menu or wine list. But, of course, we did look at the menu, and it immediately struck a discordant note. The chef has clearly decided that unadorned classics are not what he’s about. The basic ingredients, admittedly, tend to answer to the roll call you might expect, but everything comes with a twist (or with an ingredient Colonel Blimp would never have heard of).
For any chef, that really raises the bar. If you insist on putting Parmesan in your mash, you’d better be sure that an improvement, and it wasn’t. And if you’re going to wrap your meat in Parma ham, it’s best not to cook it so the only thing that’s not dried out is the Parma ham.
It was failings like this that made us wonder if this is a place which wouldn’t be better if it cut out the fancy stuff. And, while they’re at it, they could usefully knock the prices down a peg or two as well.
